The director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, who made the stunning documentary Blackfish, orchestrates the action loosely - the pacing is, at best, leisurely - but the character portraits are acute and the three central performances flawless.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 21, 2021

Our Friend is a heartbreaking movie, the tears come early and they come often, but it's not without hope.

| May 24, 2021

I was tempted to dismissOur Friendas just another movie about a loved one's battle with a fatal disease. Then I watched it. Yes, it's a tearjerker, but it's derived from a first-person article and has three exceptional performances

| Feb 5, 2021

Some things remain a mystery. If we were a little bit better as people, this decent, clear-eyed movie hints, they might not.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 29, 2021

Its strength really lies in its ability to recognize grief, in all of its raggedness and messiness, and not shy away from it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 24, 2021

While "Our Friend" is effective as drama - the acting is uniformly excellent - and is beautifully shot, the film pulls its punches to its, and the audience's, detriment.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 24, 2021

Gabriela Cowperthwaite imbues the film with enormous compassion for its characters and the lead actors, especially Segel, bring endless warmth and humanity to their roles.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 23, 2021

Our Friend spares us the gory details at almost every turn, cleaning up a story whose power stemmed, heavily, from its willingness to be gruelingly truthful about what cancer can do to the body.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 23, 2021

A gentle, two-boxes-of-tissue tearjerker...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 23, 2021

Yet it's the strength of its cast, in the capable hands of director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, that truly makes the film such a poignant and profound experience.

| Jan 23, 2021

[To] say I wasn't visibly moved would be a lie.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 22, 2021

Our Friend is insightful on a lot of things nobody wants to talk about, like caregiver fatigue.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 22, 2021

The information it contains, the raw intelligence refined by its cast, is all about the wonder of life, the joy of living it and the pain of losing it.

| Jan 22, 2021

It won't make a lot of noise, but good friendships usually don't. "Our Friend" is a quiet and respectful story that doesn't make a hero out of its subject or its characters, but simply pays tribute to someone who was there when he was needed.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 22, 2021

It dares to speak to the rare joys of life in the midst of tragedy.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 22, 2021

This is not the usual "Good Samaritan" shtick. And the film is more moving for it.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 21, 2021

Jones' clear-eyed forthrightness gets "Our Friend" to the finish line and makes sure that, as much as it's a movie about cancer, it is even more about friendship, kindness and love.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 21, 2021

Perhaps the drama would have been easier to digest if Ingelsby and Cowperthwaite hadn't decided to slice and dice their story's timeline to the point of incomprehensibility.

| Jan 21, 2021

How could an article that grappled openly with the horrors of terminal illness grow into a Lifetime-ready weepie like this?

| Jan 21, 2021

Grounding in real experience takes the movie in a direction that isn't phony or romantic or exploitative, like most illness movies. Instead, it's recognizably human and odd.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 19, 2021